Hostas are my favourite

15 July 2007

I’ve not blogged much about the garden this year. I mean, the weather’s been so rubbish, that it’s been very boggy or under water for the last 6 weeks and impossible to spend any time doing worthwhile stuff. I’ve lost lots of veg this year to pests and most of them have gone rotten in the ground. I’m left with one courgette, one tomato plant and two aubergines (but I’m not holding my breath on these)! The courgette’s doing well and the tomato has got some fruit coming on it.

I come from a long line of gardeners on both sides of my family. My paternal grandfather was a seedsman and nurseryman for Coopers in Bedford, England pre and post WW2. They always showed at Chelsea Flower Show and my father had the opportunity as a young boy to accompany him a couple of times. I’m sure it was very different back then compared with now. He recalls that dutch tulips were really exotic then and rather expensive and they always did well at the show with their display.

My parents have been farming and growing their own since the 70’s and are great proponents of all things organic and the late great John Seymour. Read his obituary here. We try our best to do what we can living in a city. We have a very successful wormery which produces fantastic liquid feed, a compost heap and anything else like rose clippings and weeds go into the green bin for the council. I don’t do any other pest control other than stomping on snails (sorry if that offends) and squashing aphids on my roses.

I’m in a crafting funk at the moment. There are lots of piles around but I’ve got the ‘can’t-be-bothereds’ at the moment. I started knitting a hooded jacket for Coco, a modification of a vintage pattern, which I hope to make available at some point, but I’m only 20 rows in………maybe I’ll take it to Cumbria this week………..Hope it doesn’t rain all week!